In these intemperate times, where we live along stark binary axes- good and bad, right and wrong, black and white- I have found myself exploring the boundary between the physical and temporal worlds, and the fuzzy boundary between them.
The Real World
This is the classical world, the one we inhabit, where actions have predictable and defined outcomes. Broadly, our existence here comes down to mechanistic constructs like If This Then That (IFTT). So, if you light a match, you can make a fire. If you press the right pedal, your car goes faster or stops. If you turn a key in a door lock, it opens. If you flip a switch a light comes on. And so on.
This world is governed by order- Newton’s Laws of Physics, the Rule of Law, Civic Ordinances, and other cause and effect frameworks. There’s a lot to be said for causality and determinism: I imagine we would all totally lose our bearings if our actions failed to generate the results we expect from those actions.
It is, at the same time, rigid and unforgiving: there is very little place for shades of grey. No, I do not mean the 50 shades kind.
The Subatomic World
This is the realm of quantum physics, where things morph and evolve to If This Then Maybe (IFTM). It is a world where there are very few laws, as such- instead there are paradoxes, principles, and hypotheses.
Instead, we have Maxwell’s Demon. The Rayleigh-Jeans Ultraviolet Catastrophe. Thomson’s Plum Pudding Model. Einstein’s Photoelectric Effect, Theory of Relativity, in both Special and General forms and Twin Paradox. Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle. Schrödinger’s Cat Paradox. De Broglie’s Wave-Particle Duality Hypothesis. Bohr’s Principle of Complementarity. Dirac’s Antiparticle Proposal. The Born-Oppenheimer Approximation. Quantum Entanglement. We also have particles called Quarks which come in Strangeness, Charm, Upness and Downness flavors, among a few others.We have Antimatter and Dark Matter. Weak Forces and Strong Forces. There’s a lot more.
I won’t (attempt to) explain all these very beautiful Nobel Prize winning ideas- the maths is beyond me now and in any case the point is what these discoveries mean, not the physics per se. But it does say that science is not the rigid, mechanistic set of rules and regulations it is often described as.
In fact, quantum physics asks us to give up on cherished classical world constructs like causality and determinism and accept a probabilistic universe. Here, a cat can be dead and alive at the same time; the mere act of observation can affect the outcome of an event or experiment; and, the more you know more about one thing, the less you’re likely to know about another.
It’s all a quite chaotic soup of ingredients without any sort of monolithic or monotheistic belief at the core.
Mapping Into The Temporal World
It’s a very short road from here to metaphysics and mysticism, but, as you might expect, the thinking causes angst. That’s why Einstein, the father of Relativity (which comes from Classical Physics), collaborated with Boris Podolsky and Nathan Rosen to create the famed EPR Paper, which sought to bring causality back into the mix.
Einstein also had this to say to the fathers of Quantum Mechanics and the probabilistic world: God does not play dice with the universe. This conflict between Relativity, which doesn’t play well in the subatomic world, and Quantum Mechanics, which doesn’t really describe the classical world, remained unresolved through Einstein’s death, and still is today. The search for a God Particle/Grand Unified Theory/Theory of Everything continues.
What Does All This Mean Day to Day?
Potentially a lot. Like all of us, I inhabit the If This Then That world. I want lights to come on, cars to accelerate, and doors to open when I want. All that is great, wanted, and only possible in the IFTT world. I’m thankful for it.
But the If This Then Maybe (IFTM) world is much more intoxicating. This temporal, quantum, place has always represented life as it actually is to me. It seems to say that everything is indeterminate. That absolutism limits knowledge. And that discovery is the true meaning of life.
In practical terms, this reduces to a duality- that word, again – where the the quantum world guides attitude and orientation in the real world. Things happen from the inside out, from small to large- not the other way round. It helps to have a framework and approach.
Broadly, in the quantum state, you can:
Reject Binaries. You need them to code and do cool tech stuff (but, actually, even that is changing). Elsewhere in the classical world, binaries force you into yes/no statements, either/or positions, standoffs, threats, and fights. Imagine your life without these binary notions. Might you be happier?
Be incomplete. We render as formed and sure physical beings in the classical world, composed of atoms and molecules, which give us our seen attributes- an exoskeleton that is often enough to get by with.
Inside though, the things we’re composed of are dealing with any number of paradoxes, uncertainties, dualities, hypotheses, and anomalies. When we see that we are like subatomic particles- imperfect and variable, sometimes strange, sometimes charming, sometimes up, sometimes down, sometimes here, sometimes not—might we have a better chance to understand the variety we are surrounded by?
Keep Searching. The Quantum World shows us that the more we learn, the more we need to find out. It’s about holding inculcated beliefs to account- asking questions, probing perceived and received truths, peeling the things we have been taught and conditioned to accept as real.
If everything is probable, then might everything also be possible between us, as people- in ideas, in plans, in action?
With all that said, please know that this isn’t a prescription or lecture- it’s just one small idea about one way of being.
Enjoy the journey.
Writer: Deepak Kamlani
Image: Michael Dziedzic, Upslash
